BUYING AND SELLING ARMS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 46, 18 November 1929, Page 15

BUYING AND SELLING ARMS

4 AN INSIDIOUS TRAFFIC GREAT BRITAIN GIVES A LEAD

Now that the tenth assembly of the League of Nations is over, it is clear that the most valuable work has been accomplished in connection with 'arbitration and security (writes Leslie R. Aldous). Great Britain’s action in signing the so/called “Optional Clause,” accepting the jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of International Justice for legal disputes, was responsible for a dozen other countries coming into line. Will her lead with regard to the Arms Traffic Convention, announced by Viscount Cecil of Chelwood ddring the closing days of the Assembly, have a similar happy result? During the stormy post-war decade, the dangers of allowing private firms to manufacture weapons 'of war and sell them to anybody who will pay for thorn hare been abundantly demonstrated. The Chinese civil wars, fostered by armaments from Europe, gave the European Governments more than enough trouble and anxiety. Abd el Krlmm, the Riff leader, in his wars against France and Spain did not find his seemingly inexhaustible supplies of ammunition growing on bushes among the rugged .Moroccan mountains. From time to time, too, odd consignments of machine-gun parts have been discovered by Customs officials in railway trucks, bound on mysterious journeys through Central Europe. Should the inquiring render ask how they came to bo there, the answer is “The arms traffic.” tin Insidious Trade. Tn 1925, the League of Nations, alive to the dangers yf the insidious trade in arms, producer) the Arms Traffic Convention which, if generally applied, would have dealt 11 deadly blow at the evil. But countries, although in theory agreed on the urgency of the problem, have been slow in using the machinery provided by the League. Vested interests in certain armaments producing Powers have probably a great deal to do with the full story of inaction, were It written. The strange case of Mr. Shearer, who was einployed by vested interests in the United States of America to bring about the failure of the Geneva Naval Conference, proves to what lengths influential concerns will go when their shareholders arc threatened. As Lord Cecil has pointed out. it is useless for one arniunicnts-producing country to sign and ratify the Convention unless the others do the same. Such il policy would simply mean that the unscrupulous Power would get a monopoly of the trade in arms. Hence Great Britain’s ratification docs not become effective until certain other countries have also ratified the Arms Traffic Convention.